When the biologists arrived, almost nothing was left.
Only the beak, a few scattered feathers, and a strange heap that should not have been there: nearly 150 plastic bands, all inside what had once been a white stork. The bird had mistaken them for worms, its usual food, and swallowed them one by one until its body could take no more.
The case occurred in Doñana National Park, one of Spain’s most protected wetlands, and it is not an isolated incident. In the La Tapa salt flats, in Cádiz, storks deposit up to 200 kilograms of plastic a year. In the Fuente de Piedra Lagoon, in Málaga, the figure rises to 400 kilograms. The nests of these birds can accumulate up to 2.000 kilograms of waste: bags, ropes, and wrappers that arrive from nearby landfills and end up in the heart of the reserve.
UNESCO had already warned about Doñana’s deterioration. This stork, unknowingly, became proof that the warning had come too late.